Monday, 31 July 2006

iAudio an Alternative to the iPod?

I just read an article about iAudio,
a portable little audio player which—unlike the iPod—might
be worth owning. It uses a real AA battery, not some expensive
proprietary failure-prone one; it plays unencumbered audio formats like
Ogg Vorbis; it has a little FM
tuner. The iAudio might
be the player for me.

Saturday, 29 July 2006

Bob Uhl, Advanced Homebrewer

Some of my regular readers may have noticed that this blog has been
silent recently. Well, there’s been a reason: I was attending the
Advanced
Homebrewing Programme offered by the Siebel Institute in
conjunction with Ft. Lewis
College. The course,
only in its third year, is a comprehensive review of brewing techniques
& technology, beer styles, sensory perception of beer and so forth.
It was incredible. More on it to follow…

A Rooftop Porch and Meadow

A family in New York City have built a porch
& meadow atop their building. It’s a pretty sweet idea;
ideally all buildings would be designed for a full-scale garden to
offset the ground the building uses.

Thursday, 20 July 2006

Mini-Racers

The Denver Post has an article up about child race-car
drivers. One six year old drives a half-scale race car that gets up
to about 80 mph. That is so cool! To be a kid driving a race
car must be just this side of heaven.

The Hybrid Hoax

Apparently hybrids
don’t get very good gas mileage after all. My ’91
Tercel gets the same mileage as an ’04 Prius, and better mileage
than either the hybrid Civic or the Escape. Are modern cars so much
heavier than 15 years ago? What’s slowing them down so much?

Starting in the 1930s the federal government started offering cheap
mortgages to those who bought homes in low-risk areas—at the time,
’low-risk’ meant thinly-populated (e.g. suburban), new and
lacking ’undesirables’ (at the time, it was explicit that
this meant blacks & immigrants). Due to FHA policies, moving out of
the city & into the suburbs was subsidised for the middle
class—at the expense of everyone.

At the same time, the federal government was constructing low-income
housing projects in the cities. This was effectively bribing the poor
to stay urban while bribing the middle class to become suburban;
hardly a conservative idea!

Then there’s the subject of transportation policy. Throughout
the last century roads have been paid for in great part from general tax
revenues rather than from usage fees or gasoline taxes; thus non-drivers
have been subsidising drivers (and yes, non-drivers and drivers alike
benefit from trucking—but mightn’t the railroads have
fulfilled the same function if they hadn’t been forced to
subsidise the truckers?). This has created a perverse incentive to
drive, and once many people were driving on the roads, they demanded yet
more roads. And these roads themselves have led to more sprawl, in a
process most of us are beginning to accept: when was the last time that
a highway expansion actually led to a shorter commute?

Then there’s the issue of education. Because of forced busing,
the only way to keep one’s children from being educated alongside
the lower-class was to leave the school district entirely. Subsidised
mortgages and roads made that decision an easy one.

Then there’s the plague of zoning. Without it, suburbs might
have just become new, upper-class cities, with walkable neighbourhoods
and a vibrant blend of commercial & residential property. Instead,
the State mandates that no business is allowed within a particular area;
naturally that means no-one living there can walk to work, and thus that
they must all own cars. Helpfully, these same zoning codes mandate
parking spaces, further encouraging drivers (for example, when was the
last time you saw any parking lot at capacity—that’s
valuable property being put to no good use).

I wonder what can be done to make urban centres more pleasant to live
in, so that people are drawn to them and away from the sprawling
suburbs. What would a truly well-planned city look like? How would
issues such as noise and privacy be handled? What would make living in
a small apartment or condo seem more attractive than living in a
McMansion on a half-acre of land?

Well, privacy can be assured with better construction—thicker
walls, windows placed intelligently. I can imagine all streets be
underground, or on elevated, fully-covered highways (increasing safety,
since weather would not be a factor) so that the primary means of
transportation would be on foot, via bicycle or public transport. And a
large yard simply means having to do yardwork; maybe apartment building
could be built with well-designed windowboxes for flowers, or stagered
private gardens or something.

It is a film about duty, about courage, about holding fast when the
odds are against one; a film about humility, about subjecting oneself to
the concerns of the greater good. It should be the film of our
age, but I understand that it didn’t earn enough in the theatres
to merit a sequel. Shame upon movie-goers everywhere!

Perhaps the finest is when the 12- or 13-year-old Lord
Blakeney—who has been left in command whilst the other officers
board the enemey—determines that those left under his command need
to themselves board in order to prevent a last-ditch attack. He gives
the order, and men many multiples of his own age, including the
ship’s doctor (an officer, but under the command of a
barely-teenage boy) follow him. In that brief sequence is portrayed
everything about honour and duty which can be portrayed.

Master & Commander should be required annual viewing
for every young man from the age of 6 to 24; it’s that good. Only
in our sad and lowly modern age would it not have won the box office
success it deserved. If you’ve not seen it yet, see it now. If
you’ve seen it already, see it again.

Friday, 14 July 2006

The USS Cairo

On 12 December 1862 the Confederate States of America achieved yet
another of their technological firsts by becoming the first to sink an
enemy ship by means of a mine, when they sank the USS Cairo by means of
a mine detonated by wire. Unfortunately no Yankees were slain
in the action—but still, we Southerners acquitted ourselves well.

Thursday, 13 July 2006

Beer Odyssey 2006

One week ago my college buddy Darren & I embarked on our second Beer
Odyssey (the one last
year having been such a very great success). This time our target
was central and western Colorado (last year's epic having covered the
northern end of my fair state). We set out on I-70 with but a single
goal in mind: to enjoy great beer and beautiful scenery; we were to get
both in spades, although I should note that as the driver for this
expedition I enjoyed mere sips of beer whilst watching Darren
drink. But I live here, and thus can always return, whilst he must
travel from Texas.

Our first stop was the Dillon
Dam Brewery, where I'd an excellent hamburger and he'd a passable
bratwurst. I purchased a glass, a pack of cards, a guide to Rocky
Mountain drinking holes, a growler of pilsener and a six pack of their
lager. Thereafter we headed to Hanging Lake (just east of Glenwood
Springs) where we saw one of the natural wonders of the world: a lake
which collapsed from a cliff face, leaving a pair of cataracts and a
beautiful crystal clear lake on the side of the cliff. The
shores are composed of travertine in its primitive state. I can highly
recommend it to anyone who's travelling in the area---it's roughly a
three-hour hike, but worth every minute.

We journeyed on to Palisade, where we visited both the Palisade Brewery and Peach Street
Distillers. The former had some excellent ales on tap; I left with
a growler of their Dually Imperial Pale Ale, a deceptively smooth beer
with a massively high alcohol content, and another growler of their
peach ale. The latter had an exceedingly friendly staff; had I not been
driving I would have dearly loved to settle down and throw back a few
drinks with them. As it was I purchased a bottle of their Goat Vodka to
bring home---a truly wonderful vodka, sweet with just a slight hint of
maize (it's made from the semi-famous Olathe Sweet Corn).

We then continued on to Grand Junction and booked ourselves some
rooms, then headed out to dinner at the Alehouse (a tied house of the Breckenridge Brewery) where I'd a
steak and Darren'd a burger (and we shared some great pub chips); then
we were on to the Kannah
Creek Brewing Compant, a brewpub/pizzeria. I wasn't terribly
impressed, to tell the truth: they struck me as more of a non-drinker's
brewpub. Still, friendly staff. We walked to our rooms from the pub,
and were soon fast asleep.

On Friday we arose and stopped briefly in Palisade to visit the Meadery of the
Rockies, whereat I got a bottle of their Chocolate Cherry Velvet, a
mead-port) as well as a six pack of perry (pear cider). We then headed
back to Glenwood Springs, where we stopped off at the Glenwood Canyon Brew
Pub, which I will wager money is owned by a Greek. Excellent food,
wonderful beers. I believe that I brought back a growler of the
raspberry wheat, IIRC. Darren had a gyro and I'd a very good fish &
chips. Then we headed to Glenwood Caverns, a somewhat
new attraction in the area. The caves are very cool, and the Alpine
Coaster is loads of fun. We set back on the road just as he weather
began to turn. We stopped off at the Gore Range Brewery, a nice
little brewpub nestled in Edwards (an otherwise nondescript town); we'd
an order of chips & salsa and I left with a growler of their red
ale. As the weather turned decidedly nasty we stopped off in Frisco at
the Backcountry Brewery
for a dinner of pizzas---very good, and well-worth a repeat visit. This
was the first brewery whereat I failed to buy a growler, not because
their beers were subpar but because I can buy them here in town and the
car was getting very cramped.

Then commenced one of the very worst drives of my life. There were
several times when I thought our numbers were up; the worst was when a
passing pickup's rain-shedding tyres obscured our windscreen so badly
that I couldn't see for about a second and a half. On a downhill
stretch. A curvy downhill stretch. At night. My life flashed before
my eyes, I swear. But we got home in the end and our beer odyssey was
done.

The following day we would visit a local C.B. & Pott's, catch Pirates of the
Caribbean, stop off at Edward's
(whereat I bought a fine pipe whereby I shall remember this trip always)
and finally brew a batch of beer. Then on Sunday we went to church, had
dinner at my folks' house and ended up visiting the finest beer bar in
the country, the Falling
Rock Tap House. After all this beer-chasing (and due to my own
homebrewing efforts) my condo housed roughly 24 gallons of beer---that's
over ¾ of a beer barrel! Along with all this beer (and the
vodka) I also purchased much glassware---mostly pints, with a few shot
glassed thrown in for good measure.

All in all it was an most wonderful trip. I'll be posting pictures
soon.

One Month without a Car

Well, not quite—but I managed to go more than a whole month
without driving my car into the office for work. Not too shabby, eh?
Of course, this Tuesday I got a flat & I’ve been driving in
until I’ve fixed the tyre. Sigh…

Monday, 03 July 2006

Irish Finally Commemorate the Battle of the Somme

Perhaps the majority of my blood is Irish---but I cannot be proud of the
fact. The Irish are, after all, the inventors of modern-day terrorism;
they slew women and children indiscriminately in their revolts against
the British Crown, utilising terror killings and such to win their
bloody independence. They long refused to recognise the sacrifice of
their countrymen in the Great War: while the Protestant war memorial is
well-tended, the Catholic one is small, shabby and decrepit. It took 20
years for the city of Dublin to approve a statue of a
nationalist Irishman because of three little words: Killed
in France (because he died fighting for the English). We are
talking about the sort of people who can blather on about reparations
for the potato famine, as though the English could be blamed for potato
blight. We are talking about traitors who rebelled during the Great
War. In the case of the IRA, we are talking about folks
fighting on the side of the Nazis in the Second World War: Sean
Russell sent
bombs into England and travelled to & from Berlin, partly via
U-Boat. Worst of all, Éamon de Valera---prime minister of the
Irish Republic---visited the German ambassador to convey his official
condolences after Hitler's suicide; the Secretary of External Affairs
accompanied him and the next day the Irish President did the same.

The Ninetieth Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme

Ninety years ago on Saturday the
Battle of the Somme began. On that first day there were nearly
60,000 casualties; almost 20,000 died. By the end, there would be
600,000 casualties, of whom more than 120,000 died. In a few
months an entire generation fell. Practises such as Pals’
Brigades (military units formed of men from the same town, or
school, or place of business—a good idea in earlier wars) meant
that a few sweeps of a machine gun could cut down all men of fighting
age from a village. The terrible new weapons of warfare had never been
tested against civilised foes, and tactical doctrine couldn’t find
a solution.

And of course the great cost paid by the Allies demanded an equal
price be paid by the vanquished Central Powers—and the vindictive
Treaty of Versailles led directly the Second World War.

We know how this will turn out: first churches will be asked to cut
on candles and incense. Maybe electric lamps will be suggested instead,
or plug-in air fresheners. But some churches will adhere to their
long-hallowed ways, and the studies will continue to mount up. Then
special taxes will be imposed upon candles and incense to discourage
their use. And yet still some churches will continue as they always
have. Meanwhile, most people will have left such things in the past,
and will complain when visiting a traditionalist of the odour of snuffed
candles and the reek of smoke and charcoal. And in the end all churches
will be banned from using the accessories of their faith, supposedly for
the good of their congregations and clergy (who never wanted to let go
of their traditions in the first place).

First they came for the smokers, and you didn’t speak up
because you weren’t a smoker. Then they came for the overweight,
and you didn’t speak up because you weren’t obese. Then
they came for the candle-burners…